News From Shane's Friend in Japan!

Many of you know Shane's good friend, Adam Voss. He began his mission in April 2010, and is serving in the Nagoya, Japan mission. I thought it would be fun to post a letter from him here. He was not in the area affected by the tsunami and he is safe and well. I thought some of you might like to read his latest letter home.

                                                             Lacie

Elder Voss  is in the back row on the far right.

先週が本当におもしろかったです！

   Hey everybody!

             This week has brought quite a few changes to the mission! We`ve been feeling tremors pretty much every day, and a few good size shakes...and then on Wednesday or Tuesday we were told that Tokyo and Sendai missions were being closed! (it sounds like from your e-mails that you already know a little it about that) All of the missionaries in Sendai were transferred up to the Sapporo mission, and the Tokyo missionaries were dispersed throughout Kobe, Fukuoka, and Nagoya. We had 43 new missionaries come into Nagoya :) Six of them came up into our zone.  It`s been pretty exciting! For this week actually they are trying to find an apartment for the Ina elders, so for now there are six missionaries here in Suwa...kinda cramped, but pretty fun! The two new Suwa missionaries are Elder Taylor and Elder Ludwig. Elder Taylor is from Utah, and Elder Ludwig is from Elk Grove California! :) I`ve been talking with Elder Ludwig and apparently he was there performing with us in the Sacramento temple celebration so long ago. He just arrived in Japan three weeks ago. It`s been somewhat of a trying experience at times to get used to having so many other missionaries around all the time, but everyone is united on the same purpose, and it`s been really great to get to know them. We are not sure how long they will staying here in the mission for, but President Baird said that we are planning on it being a long time.

             This week has been a bit of a challenge to meet with anyone...everyone is pretty insanely busy what with the earthquakes and changing situations everywhere. Everyone around here is having a pretty hard time finding gasoline and groceries because after the disasters everyone is buying everything up. We were able to meet with one of our investigators Satou...it went pretty well! We went to his apartment and he wasn`t home, but then as we were riding down the hill away from his place, he came walking up to us :) We taught him more about the restoration, really focusing on the love that Jesus Christ for us in giving us the gift of this gospel. He still feels like he can`t believe that Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ could exist, but I feel that his interest in learning more is growing. We introduced more about the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy with a reading assignment...he said that he would read before our next appointment, so we will see where that goes :) Ganzo, remained busy this week. We tried to get in contact with him many times, but could never really get through...and during the weekend he went to Nagoya again. We aren`t really sure what the plan will be with him yet...but we`re praying for him, and hoping to get back in contact really soon. We weren`t able to meet with Vanessa either, but were able to talk with her on the phone a little...and she seems like she is doing well :)

             Kind of a funny moment for the week...I was mistaken for a Japanese person, twice! I guess the food has been changing me in ways I didn`t realize...? No, actually it was over the phone. We were called by a lot of members and other people this week, and twice when I picked up they were like "Umm...is this Elder Ogaki or Elder Voss?" haha...it was pretty great. Actually, speaking of members...they have been an amazing help this week! When all of the new elders moved in, we were kind of in trouble because we didn`t have nearly enough futons or food...and like right when were sitting there wondering what to do, our branch president called. He basically organized like three families to bring us a ton of futons and food that night, right after the missionaries arrived. Not only that, but when we arrived at church on Sunday, the members had brought an absolutely ridiculous amount of food there for us...so much that we had loaded ourselves up, and then they had to drive the remainder over to us! The people here are so so amazing! They have had a difficult week as well, but as soon as they heard we needed help they jumped into action. We have felt so blessed to be in such a wonderful area :)

           Another cool moment of the week...was church itself. It was kind of intense, but a really great experience!  I had a talk in Sacrament Meeting, and the Relief Society and Young Men`s presidents had asked Elder Ogaki and I to teach for five minutes each in their classes. I was feeling pretty nervous in the morning, but when we sat down in Sacrament meeting and started singing the opening hymn it just all started fading away. Usually it`s a big struggle for me to not get too preoccupied with thinking about the language instead of focusing on what I need to, but yesterday was wonderful. I could feel the spirit so strongly there throughout all our meetings, and just the happiness that this gospel brings. This gospel is true! I love it so much :) My time is about up, but thank you so much for all your e-mails and support! Don`t worry about us here, we are safe :) Have a wonderful week, I love you!

                                                                                                                                                                                                              -Elder Voss

First Week in Bacau!

Hey everyone! I loved your email, Mom, that's really great that Eli seems to be making good progress and wants to be more academicaly involved. Or maybe his wanting to take classes are more for social reasons, but either way it sounds like things are going well for him. Don't worry about getting him to write me, I understand. That really means a lot to me though that he printed off a picture of me and my companions and that he talks about me to his friends! 

I loved that picture of Chad. It looks beautiful where he's serving, and he looks like he's really enjoying it. Hahaha that is sooo like Chad to not say anything to his mom about him losing weight. It's crazy how much weight some of the missionaries here have lost from looking at their MTC pictures! Nothing like a super active lifestyle to keep you in shape, and walking around everywhere will deffinitely do that for you. So yeah, sorry the picture of Vasile didn't go through...I'll try to send it again. The other pictures were just of the countryside around Cluj and Sibiu. A lot of Romanian countryside reminds me of northern California, it's beautiful! I can't wait till it's all green and lush! This week has been cold again. So much for spring right? haha. I'ts been cold, cloudy and a little rainy ever since I got into Bacau, so I can relate a little with the weather you've been having. Gotta love those spring storms! That's crazy that church got canceled! 


A little bit about Bacau: Its small. One of the smaller cities open right now. So yeah, my companion Elder Schank is the branch president. Yesterday was his first Sunday conducting. It was also Branch Conference and one of the members from the district presidency (which is pretty much the same as the stake presidency) came and spoke about the iron rod. His talk was realy good, he's a very lively orator. Then there's the zone leaders, Elder Toronto and Elder Harvey, they're both pretty cool. Elder Harvey writes random little poems and plays the piano really well, and Elder Toronto plays the guitar, and they're both really goofy. I love getting to know other missionaries' personalities, and just seeing how they all fit together as a district is really interesting. There's also a senior couple here, the Marcov's, who are from Utah and are in they're second or first transfer. 

The branch is really small. I mean reaaaalll small. There were 7 or 8 members at church yesterday, and Elder Schank said that was a pretty good turnout! The villa where we hold service is pretty nice though, it actually kinda looks and feels like a chruch. I'll take some pictures and show you. As far as investigators go, when I first came in we had zero, and now we have one. He called us about English classes and said that he had talked to missionaries before in Spain (he's done a lot of traveling) and wanted to learn more. We've had a couple lessons with him and he's accepting everything really well. He read the restoration and gospel brochures and was just like yeah, yeah that's great, if Jesus called Joseph Smith to be a pr0phet, then he was a prophet!  We gave him the Book of Mormon, and he said he'd read it every day and pray about it. So that's it for investigators haha! Quite a stark contrast from Cluj! I'm excited though, to be in a city that has a reputation for being slow as far as missionary work goes. All of us missionaries here have a good feeling about this transfer and I'm confident that we can help make good things happen in this branch. You asked about how missionary work goes having a branch president as a companion, and yeah, a good portion of time has been taken up by taking care of branch business stuff, so there's been a lot of time spent at the church, but we still have plenty of time to do contacting.

Thanks for sending the package mom, I haven't gotten it yet, but I probably will sometime next month. I can't believe this month is already over half way through! Where did it go??? Oh and whenever you send another package, could you put some old spice deoderant in with everything else? They don't exactly have the best deoderant over here.... Anyways, for todays P-day we're mostly doing shopping and just random stuff here and there.The zone leaders are playing basketball but Elder Schank and I aren't to big on basketball, so we're just gonna go do our own thing for most of today haha.


 Oh and I loved the quote for this week mom, as usuall, but that one really tied into some of the things I've been noticing and thinking about lately. Never fails. Every week I get exactly what I need from you and dad! I also got an email from Grandpa Gary and Grandma Linea that was really nice. They're such amazing people! Oh and this is for them, dragoste means love in romanian! Well, that's about it for this week, I hope things sunny-up a bit this week for you guys! I love you all so much!!

Elder Myers





Quote of the Week:


"Learn to write your hurts in the sand and carve your blessings in stone."


                                        --proverb

Vine Primavara!

Shane with Aurelia and Salvatore. He considers them his "Romanian grandparents." Salvatore is a member of the church, and Aurelia is planning to be baptized soon. This photo was just taken March 11th. 

   

Here comes Spring!!!! This week has been wonderfully pleasant and warm -- in the 60's and almost all of the snow is melted now. Soooooooooooooo the answer to the money question: first of all, yes this week is transfers mom, and yes you will find out where I'm going today, second of all, my days in wonderful Cluj Napoca are over, I'm being transfered to Bacau where I will be companions with Elder Schank who will be the branch president there! Bacau is in the east, so I'm going to the opposite side of the country! Elder Vogelsberg knows everyone who's going to be in my new district, and he said that I'm going to have an awesome distrtict! This transfer's been really awesome, and its going to be sad leaving this district (I'm the only one leaving Cluj and Elder Vogelsberg will be training a boboc straight out of the MTC) and this amazing branch, but I'm excited for what's to come! 

So about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, I had actually heard about it earlier this week, and I've been thinking about Adam. I'm soooo glad to hear that he and all the other missionaries in Japan are safe. In his last letter he told me he was serving in a city that was up in the mountains, so I was hoping that he would still be far enough inland and elevated to not be directly affected by the tsunami. And it went all the way over to Crescent City and Santa Cruz!! Holy smokes, that's insane!

So random funny story right now. You all know how I've been known to do stuff in my sleep (sleep walk, talk, make weird noises, etc) Well I haven't sleep walked at all on my mission, which kind of surprises me, but Elder Vogeslberg told me that last night I started just cracking up in my sleep! He just heard me laughing, and mumble something and then laugh some more! Hahah that's a first, I've never had anyone tell me that I laughed in my sleep before!

 On Thursday and Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Brunner in Sibiu which was fun, it was cool to be able to spend a day with him again, since he was in Cluj last transfer. So that Thursday night Elder Vogelsberg was with Elder Bennet - the other zone leader - in Cluj and they had lessons with Gyongyi and Vasile.

So a little about investigators, I've attached a picture of me with Salvatore and Aurelia, and then one of me and Vasile (my Romanian Uncle). Aurelia and Salvatore are doing really well, the're not quite moved out yet, but they're really close. They have a second layer of paint to lay down, and they just have to finish putting in appliances, etc. But for sure Aurelia should be baptized within a month! Gyongyi has been sick the past couple of days so she wasn't able to come to church this week, but she's continuing to progress and straight on course for baptism on the 26th! We've been praying a lot for her to be able to forgive herself for some of her past sins that she still feels a lot of guilt and remorse for. She's done everything she needs to to recieve forgiveness, she's just having a hard time letting go. We're trying to help her see that as soon as she lets go of her past she will feel God's forgiveness and love.

 Then Vasile, from what Elder Vogeslberg told me, has set for himself a baptismal date that he wont tell us because he wants it just to be between him and God - which is understandable, just a little frustrating haha. He also told us that he said he's been praying a lot to know if this is the true church, and a few days ago he had a dream that for him was an answer to his prayers, and now he knows that this is Christ's church. When he's baptized he's going to have a really strong testimony and he's going to be a really really strong member. He did say, however, that for now he wants to start living like a member, so we're going to talk about exactly what that means, and commit him to staying to church for all three hours, talk about church callings, stuff like that. Now as for our miracle family that we block nocked into, sadly they've kind of dropped of the map to us. We've tried setting up another lesson with them, but they've just been pretty wishy-washy about it. So for now they're dropped. Hopefully sometime down the road they'll keep reading the Book of Mormon and start meeting with missionaries again.

But a cool random experience Elder Vogeslberg and I had on Saturday, we were just walking down one of the main streets in Centru (downtown basically) making our way to a lesson, when this guy calls out to us in English from his apartment window. He asked us what church we were from, we told him, then he asked us if he could come down and talk to us for a couple minutes. He a black middle-eastern college-aged guy going to med shcool in Cluj named Mohammed. He was born Muslim, but he's really open to learning more about other religions, and said how if you're so sure about your own faith then you should learn more about other religions to see the differences, and also to see if there's truth in other faiths and maybe you find that your religion isn't the right one. So he asked if he could set up a meeting with us and wants a Book of Mormon and learn about our doctrine. He said that he had talked to sister missionaries in Sweden (where he was raised) and wants to know more! How cool is that, all we were doing was just walking down the street and a missionary opportunity literally just called out to us! To me it was another reminder of how much people do notice us just walking down the street!

So Thats about it for this week, next week I'll be telling you all about Bacau and my new district! Tomorrow night I take a train down to Bucharest to meet Elder Harvey, who will be in my district. Then we will take a train to Bacau and I'll meet Elder Schank. Thanks so much for those adorable pictures of Tristan and Ember! Thats so funny to hear about Allyson being torn about not letting her daughter draw on herself haha! Well you all have a wonderfull week, I love you!

Elder Myers

Quote of the Week:

Truth is the daughter of Inspiration; analysis and debate keep the people away from Truth. 

                                                                                        

                                                                                       ---Kahlil Gibran

Fericita Martisoara!

Hey there everyone!  Thank you mom and dad for those wonderful emails. Somehow every week when I hear from you and then weeks when I get an email from Heather as well, you allways say exactly what I need. So tomorrow is Martisoara (mart-see-shwar-uh) which is kind of like the Romanian's Mother's Day, only for women in general. Apparently March 8 was the day when womened gained voting rights and stuff like that in Romania. There's been tons of street vendors selling flowers and little jewelry trinkets and things like that everwhere, and last week we bought flowers for some of our female investigators.

 Man, once again this week has just flown by, and now a week from today I will be finding out where I'm going for the next transfer! Aah the hiking sounds absolutely wonderful, and that's awesome that Heather's coming up at the end of the month. You should definitely take her to Phantom Falls. Last year when we went to Table Mountain we went to the water fall that we usually go to. I had wanted to go to Phantom Falls, but I couldn't remember how to get there. That's too bad that Eli's been sick....Elder Vogelsberg has been pretty sick this week too. He's on the up and up now though. Man, this was a pretty rough week for him. On Tuesday morning he got a call from President Lunberg that his mom has been diagnosed with skin canncer and would be having an operation that week! Needless to say, he was really worried. I can't imagine how hard it would be for me to find out that one of you got cancer, and have to keep on doing missionary work! Thankfully he was able to call his mom on Wednesday night, and she told him that everything was going to be ok, that the doctor was really good and that the cancer was only in stage 1, so there was a really good chance that it hadn't spread past one of her lymph nodes. That day we fasted for her as a district and on Thursday she had the operation. Friday morning Edler Vogelsberg got another call from President Lunberg saying that everything went well with the operation, and they were biopsying the lymph node to see if the cancer spread, but the doctor had told them he would be shocked if the cancer had spread at all. So.......yeah, quite the eventfull week! Talk about an emotional rollercoaster. It was hard for me just to see my companion going through that. I felt so useless. But things are much much better now, and Tuesday he will know the results from the biopsy.

As far as investigators go, Gyongyi is doing really really well. She came to church last week, and really liked again. In our lessons we've been reading out of the Book of Mormon with her and teaching her all the different commandments, and she is so close to being completely ready for baptism! Our other baptismal date, Eni we ended up having to drop. Her story is kind of a sad one. She has a testimony of the Book of Mormon, she told us she can feel the Holy Ghost when she reads it and that it is a holy book, and she really feels like she needs to get baptized, but she doesn't want to change religions. We've been trying to get her to come to church so she can feel the Spirit there, but she just won't come, so we just had to tell her that if she wouldn't come to church then we couldn't meet anymore. That was kind of sad and frustrating, but oh well, what can you do? On the other hand, a couple days ago we ran into Mihaela on the bus! Coincidence? I think not! We talked to her for a little, she said that life's been pretty hard, she's just been working a ton. She wanted to come to English class on Saturday though! We told her that English had ended and won't be starting for a couple more weeks, but that opened a window of oportunitiy. I called her the next day to set up a lesson for Saturday, and she started to say that she was too busy to meet, and this and that, but I was persistent and I set up a lesson for tonight! I'm excited to see how she's doing and try to help her rekindle her testimony!

And more good news!!! On Friday we had a lesson with Salvatore and Aurelia (my Romanian grandparents) and had a lesson on miracles and sacrifices, then talked about them working towards having one of them move out, since they found an apartment. They told us that they are more than willing to make this sacrifice, and they've already been making plans to move, and have already bought a new bed for the other apartment and everything! Those two are sooo amazing! Their faith is so strong, and I could just feel the power that comes from faith like that as Salvatore told us how he knows that if they make this sacrifice so that Aurelia can get baptized then God will help them with the other things they are in need of. I left that lesson feeling so full with the Spirit and so good! Vasile is also making progress towards baptism. He told us how a couple weeks ago he didn't go to church, and it was just a bad week in general, things going wrong with work, and this and that, and then the next week he did go to church and he said the following week was so much better! He's starting to recognize all of the answers he's gotten and knows that he needs to get baptized, at this point it's just a matter of when. This week we're going to give him a baptismal date towards the end of the month, and help him put his faith to the test and make this step!

So, this next week should be nice and busy, like usual. Its kind of ridiculous how many other investigators we have. I only talked about the ones close to baptism. We still have at least 10-15 others, most of which we haven't even been able to call and set up with because we're so busy with other ones! Of course there's going to be a couple of them that we will be dropping this week, but still, lots of investigators! Both of the companions I've had have said that this is by far the most investigators they've ever had at the same time in their entire misison! Cluj is a miracle city, and ripe and ready for the gospel! Well, I hope you all have an amazing week, and thank you so much for all the love, support and help I get from you. I love you all!

Cu dragoste,

Elder Myers

Quote of the Week:

The seat of knowledge is in the head, of wisdom,

in the heart.

                                     William Hazlitt